


Whose journey is endurance

by jadelennox



Category: Castle Waiting
Genre: Backstory, Chromatic Character, Female Character of Color, Gen, Romani Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:43:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Think how popular you'll be. An underclassman arriving with a book that even the librarians at the Academy have never been able to obtain."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose journey is endurance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stasia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stasia/gifts).



> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/)  
> This work by jadelennox is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/).

#### Present day

Cyclopædia, Euclid's Book of Fallacies. Conversations with Eckermann, Les problèmes d’un problème, Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. Love's Labour's Won. One by one, Pindar wrapped the precious library books in sheets of oilcloth, then again in fabric to cushion any blows, and laid each of them in his trunk. The somber volumes looked miffed as each vanished beneath layers of delicately embroidered muslin which had once been the long-gone baby princess's: pink sleeve knots, shirred lawn bodices, Valenciennes lace covering tooled leather of serious brown, hunter green, burgundy.

It was a fancy, and Pindar knew it. The fabric came from the princess's baby things, true, but the scraps had been used as rags so much they were washed to a uniform grayish white. And the oilcloth turned the books into interchangeable packages like any that came to the Castle. They could have been flour, horn glue, nails. Besides, any frivolousness imparted by the baby clothes was offset by the intent manliness of the trunk itself, securely bound with bands of iron by Uncle Henry.

Behind him lay childhood: getting his cheeks pinched by the handmaidens as he bent to kiss their powdery cheeks; a toybox filled with a jumble of the princess's old dolls and newer iron baguenaudiers and interlocking boxes; Dinah checking behind his ears for dirt; his mother tying deep green velvet ribbons into his shock of hair. Ahead of him lay scholars' robes and all night studying; serious conversation; comprehending the world. The passion of the Academy.

Rackham walked in without knocking, both arms delicately cradling something. "Pindar," he called softly. "Do you have a moment?"

Pindar nodded, laying A Banquet for the Wormes with care in the trunk atop its swaddled fellows. "Do you need me?" he asked. "I'm nearly done."

"No, take your time," said Rackham. He approached the trunk, holding out his arms in offering. The steward must have been in the library for a while; he smelled of books and the beeswax Simon lovingly polished into the tables and shelves. "We've decided you should bring this one, too."

Pindar peered at the object in Rackham's arms. _Was that...?_ He took one step back, eyes wide. "I can't take the  Hryggjarstykki, Uncle Birdie," he said. "It's the only copy that exists!"

Rackham smiled. "The only _paper_ copy. We can always get the Hammerlings to help us rescribe it if anything happens." He placed the book gently on the counting table, and took another square of oilcloth from Pindar's pile. "Peace and Simon and I have conferred," he said as he carefully wrapped the  Hryggjarstykki. "We've all had so much fun with our classes on the Saknusson runes, and we want you to continue studying and teaching them at Academy." He finished the wrapping with a complex underfold Pindar had never been able to duplicate but which, he knew, would hold tight without string until he chose to unwrap it. "Besides, think how popular you'll be. An underclassman arriving with a book that even the librarians at the Academy have never been able to obtain."

"I don't think they lay much stock by Hammerling histories at the Academy, Uncle Birdie," he said, laying his hand on the book. Though it was as anonymous as the others in its oilcloth, he would never mistake this one volume for flour, nor horn glue, nor nails.

"Only because they don't have any," said Rackham, grinning. "Fox and grapes, my boy. Speaking of which, I'm starving. You're much better at begging between-meal snacks out of Dinah than I am. Join me?"

Pindar left his hand for one more minute on the Hryggjarstykki. He fancied he could feel it talking to him, telling him secrets of Hammerling history which he'd never understand, no matter how many weeks he'd spent playing in the mountain as a child. Finally he turned.

"Sure," he said. "I think I've figured out her new hiding place for the cheese."

Rackham wrapped one spindly arm around Pindar's shoulders. "What will I do without you?" he asked. "Lead on."

* * *

#### Long ago, and far away

Jain paced -- stomped, really -- around the solar, eyebrows drawn into a tight W. Agatha let her take out this black mood on the carpets, furniture, and the abused knots of her embroidery. She should have sat Jain down firmly in her chair and shamed her into picking out the knots in the delicate seafoam-green floss, and on a normal day, she would have. Today Agatha just continued quietly with her own mending, sucking her teeth periodically as she eyed Jain over the darns in stockings (her own; never mended stockings for the young lady, though Jain went through enough pairs running wild in the garden and sneaking out to play football with Tylo).

Agatha winced as Jain kicked the heavy wood of the window seat. She ought to offer something for the bruises that would be sure to form, but she didn't want to put down her mending for a trip to the icehouse Jain could make herself. Besides, if she left Jain alone today, who knew what the girl would take it in her head to do?

Jain curled over her foot, hissing. Her face contorted, eyes tiny slits and nose scrunched, as she struggled for the curses absent from a young lady's vocabulary. "Ooh, _'snails_." Jain clutched fists full of skirt in both hands, crumpling the rich velvet.

"What did the window seat do to irritate you so?" asked Agatha, knowing even as she spoke that she was just pouring fuel on the fire of Jain's anger.

"I don't want to kick the window seat," Jain said, glaring at Agatha. "I want to kick Mr. Hencklemann. I want to kick him in the, in the --" She paused. "I want _lui botter le cul_."

Agatha harumphed, holding the stocking she was darning up to her face to hide the smile she couldn't repress. "Your Papa told Tylo to stop teaching you those words," she said.

It was the wrong thing to say. " _Tylo_ ," Jain wailed, her mouth opening so wide nobody would ever mistake her for the lady she'd been raised to be.

Agatha neatly folded the stocking and put her darning egg back into the sewing basket. "Stop your fretting, Jain," she said. Jain glared at her mulishly, but Agatha only reached for her cane with her right hand and held out the other to Jain. "I need some lavender; the moths have been at the mending again. Escort me into the potager."

Jain, to her credit, stopped her unearthly yowling and held Agatha's arm steady. With a grunt, Agatha levered herself up, looking at Jain's hand by her own. Her own skin was almost translucent, liver spots standing out a darker brown than the surrounding skin. Jain's hand was ghost-pale against her own, fingers soft and lacking callus, the few scratches from her outdoor adventures almost invisible after repeated treaments of rosewater and goat's milk. Silver and porcelain thimbles had protected her fingers from any recorded evidence of a young lady's needlework, and Jain had never been required to do aught else as handywork. Even protecting herself from Aimee and Andreia had been something the girl needed to learn to do with words; rescuing Jain from her half-sisters' more creative and physical tortures had been Agatha's own responsibility.

"Aggie?" Jain looked at her quizzically.

Agatha shook her head to clear it of the cobwebs. Old age was making her absent-minded. "Yes, the lavender," she said.

In the garden, Jain made Agatha sit on the old stone bench and insisted on gathering the lavender herself. It would be nice if this were a sign of growing consideration on the girl's part, rather than restlessness. It would also be nice if Jain took care with the plants. She ruthlessly hacked too many branches from one and left another lopsided. It would take much of an afternoon for Anselm to prune them back into shape, and Agatha knew she should say something to the girl, but she closed her eyes and let the sun shine on her face instead. In the unexpected break in her routine, she felt the warmth struggle to penetrate the stiffness in her joints.

After all too short a pause, a familiar rustling over the garden wall made Agatha open her eyes.

"TYLO!" yelled Jain, scattering lavender hither and yon as she ran towards the figure climbing down the carefully espaliered pear. Agatha frowned as the boy tumbled the last foot, pulling a branch from its bindings, but said nothing as Jain dashed toward Tylo, her skirt flying out behind her. Jain stopped a few inches from Tylo, and held out one hand toward him hesitantly. "Are you unhurt?"

"Of course," scoffed the boy. "Unhurt, unshent, unspoiled --" Agatha snorted at that one. "Uninjured, unimpaired, unscathed." Jain ignored him, examining his face closely, peering at his eyes, watching his stance.

"You do seem sound," she said, but she sounded disbelieving. Agatha didn't blame her. Agatha may have been aggravated by Tylo, by his careless assumption of the power gifted by wealth on a family that had been itinerant peddlers not that many generations ago but acted as if nobles now. Still, her heart went out to him on those days when his _dugon_ of a father returned from travel, fists flying.

Tylo's grin was lopsided. "My father brought a business partner back from Muscovy. Something about setting up new trade routes -- he's one of those whatdoyoucallems."

"Boyars?" asked Jain.

Tylo's grin got wider, turned practically into a genuine smile. "Maybe. He's a queer buck, but a good 'un. Saw that father was...tetchy, and distracted him with some long story about tariffs and the bishop of Turku. Winked at me over father's shoulder, too, so I know it was intentional."

Jain flung her arms around Tylo, her legs flying free as she clung to his larger form. "Well, then I love him, for helping you," she cried. Tylo's arms close around her and he spun her, the pair of them giggling until suddenly they both stopped and pulled their heads back to stare at each other. The scene was comical, their eyes huge, their noses nearly touching until predictably Tylo dropped Jain like a hot potato and she leapt away, tripping backwards and landing on her behind in a flower bed.

"Ew," she said, brushing at her arms.

"Feh," he complained, scrunching his face.

Agatha sighed and levered herself back to her feet. She had no stomach for their burgess prudishness, and she'd taken more of a break then she had time for. Lowering herself painfully to the garden flags, she began to gather the lavender now strewn willy-nilly. Behind the arbor, she could see Anselm waiting impatiently for Jain and her swain to leave, so he could get to work repairing the damage they'd wrought to the pear, the flowerbeds, the lavender plants.

Ah, well. She couldn't deny her relief that the boy had escaped another beating. And now Jain's intolerable restlessness should settle, leaving Agatha free to complete her own work. There were the pears to brandied, and the bran to be put on to boil or there'd be no starch for the week's linens on Friday, and the tallow candles to make for those who didn't get beeswax: herself and Anselm and Stedman the groom. Already she'd lost too much of the afternoon to Jain's dramatics.

She gathered up the lavender and headed inside.

* * *

#### Present day

"So, boy," said Magister Gascoignes, pouring a fragrant stream of tea into a Medici porcelain cup. "How are you finding Academy life? Sayre College, I believe. Master Gumery doing right by you?"

"Oh, yes, sir." Pindar took the proffered cup with hands he sternly ordered not to shake. An interview with Magister Gascoignes so early, while he was just a lowly first-year -- barely out of his first _month_ \-- meant something was going right. Since the invitation had arrived, Pindar had been walking on air, almost able to ignore the snubs and whispers of his classmates. Had his work drawn attention so quickly? "The lectures on rhetoric have been thrilling." He didn't mention that the natural philosophy coursework was the same material he'd covered with Doctor Fell practically as soon as he'd been breeched, and his Hebrew was better than the Academy lecturer's. The material on rhetoric _was_ thrilling; he felt his mind expanding with every lecture.

"Excellent, excellent," said Magister Gascoignes, sipping his own tea. "Good to know you're settling in. Biscuit?" He pushed the plate -- porcelain, again -- of tea biscuits toward Pindar. It wasn't until Pindar had a mouthful of the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth sweet he'd ever tasted that the magister said, "Rasskazhite mne o nrav i zhizn leshego. skip Russian characters _Расскажите мне о нрав и жизнь лешего_."

Pindar choked a little, and worked to swallow the mouthful of suddenly dry crumbs. "I beg your pardon, Magister," he said, when he could speak. "I don't speak the Russian language, and I'm not a leshy."

The magister raised one eyebrow. "You seem to contradict yourself, Master Solander."

"I can speak enough of the language to infer the meaning of that phrase, sir," Pindar conceded. "As I've been asked variants on the question many times before."

"Ah." Magister Gascoignes gazed at him thoughtfully, brows beetled. "And your answer has been the same each time?"

Pindar hoped his sigh wasn't audible. "Yes, sir. My mother is Lady Jain Solander, _ex hominis stirpe_. I speak truly, I do."

"And your father? _Eodemne ex stirpe venit_?"

"My father died before I was born," said Pindar, knowing, as he always did, that it was no answer.

"Ah," said the Magister once more. "Well, it's been good to meet you, lad." He pulled a heavy leather bound book across the desk and opened it to a marked page. He began to read, or at least give a rough facsimile of reading.

 _Pointed and unsubtle,_ Pindar thought critically, but he understood the message. "Thank you for your time, sir," he said, pushing back his chair. He bowed himself from the room, leaving behind a cooling cup of tea and plate of crumbs.

* * *

#### Long ago, and far away

Sal kept her Wise Woman face pasted firmly on while she listened to the little gorgio spin a web of deceit which impressed even her. His Romany was less impressive. It was difficult to keep a straight face in response to the little man's pride at barely intelligible sentences such as _Ama isi lačhi čhaj, o dad bičhavela lehki o distarabin_. She got the gist of his sob story, though more than once nearly told him just to speak in English already.

She was a little insulted the tiny fellow clearly expected her to believe his moonshine and cobwebs tale -- she might not be an expert on the gorgio nobility, but if that girl was the daughter of "the wealthy Count of Carabas", Sal was a blacksmith -- yet saw a kernel of truth in it all the same. That far along pregnant and out on her own with only those two inexpert hucksters as friends? The gorgi _was_ in trouble, and probably about the baby, too.

No matter. There were some risks they couldn't afford to take right now, and one of them was that this girl might not be as friendless as she looked.

"So sorry, fine lady," she said after escorting the little man from her tent. She pressed the girl's hands, chattering away in her best thick fortuneteller accent, aiming for a mix of obsequious and maternal. Sal peered into the gorgi's face, knowing it would be taken for clairvoyant wisdom. Was that a scar high on one cheekbone? A man's ring could make such a mark if he backhanded a woman.

Eh. Pity would get her nowhere good.

"Bahtalo drom!" she called after the two little men and the pregnant girl as they left the camp with their reclaimed mare. Not until they were out of sight did Sal let her Mombi-the-fortune-teller face slip, fall back into Sal Gritt.

"Ho, Sal," said Jenk, coming up behind her. "What was that all about? Why'd you give the gorgio the mare?"

"Didn't want trouble," said Sal. "They knew where we were, knew how to find us. The little gorgio who spoke Rom even knew where the beast was tethered. I send them away without their horse? They come back with the law."

"Those three?" Jenk snorted. "They're on the run. I can smell it."

"Doesn't mean they weren't desperate enough to sic the beadle on us. Besides." Sal paused and tugged on her nose, embarassed. "I liked the woman."

They were silent for a few minutes, the fire crackling behind them. Finally, Jenk said, into the darkness, "The Big Man won't approve."

"Ha! He don't want no pregnant woman's impure mare, anyhow." Sal's glare dared him to argue.

"How do you know you liked her? You only talked to the little one."

Sal grinned, a flash of Mombi in her face. "Saw her in the village. I offered to _gaze into your palm, fine lady, if you cross my own with silver._ Or summat like that." She paused, peered up at him from under half-lidded eyes. "She's on the run from her dad, or maybe her man. We might be helping her out with that, come winter; the little gorgio wants us to take the baby."

Jenk raised his eyebrows. "You believe him? Even from a distance, she doesn't look like the type who wants to ditch her kid." They dealt with enough of those to know the odor of that kind of fear. "She's been eating: color in her cheeks, flesh on her bones. Looks like she's been eating better than some of our own."

"Eh," Sal said, waving one hand. "Poor frightened mama, you never can tell. We can help her out if she's in a pinch, betimes. Colley, his Donka's had no children. She'll take the little gorgio and be happy of it, if the mother wants it gone. Raise it right, make a sweet little Rom of the tyke."

Jenk snorted again, but Sal knew he'd back her if it came to that. Jenk never could stand to see someone slap around a woman, not even a great pregnant gorgi. "It was a pretty mare," he said at last. "Sound animal. She should be safe enough on it."

"Aye, she should at that. And meantime, we've another few days to mend Bremen's pots and pans without trouble." She turned toward the cookfire. "I've got work to do." Sal went to check on the stewpot, leaving Jenk standing in darkness, looking towards Bremen town.

 

* * *

#### Present day

Pindar eased the boots off his swollen feet and inspected them carefully. New blisters, he saw. Sighing, he rummaged in his pack for his nearly-empty packet of ointment to keep foulness and disease from the blisters. Egg yolk, turpentine, and oil of roses, all mixed with care by Master Ambroise -- the only Master who had liked or even tolerated him. Teaching Pindar, Master Ambroise was teaching a student of Doctor Fell, and _that_ was a feather in his cap important enough to outweigh any discomfort gained from teaching the ugly green freak.

That wasn't fair to Master Ambroise. He'd been good to his strange student. More than fair, he'd been kind. Not at first, but once he got to know Pindar as a student and not just as a failure of a romantic mystery.

Pindar hissed as he eased the rags off his old blisters. More than anything, he wanted to soak his feet in the spring-swollen brook he could hear through the woods. This close to the castle, though, he didn't dare. Ole Man River would sniff him out sure as anything if he were touching water, and he wasn't yet sure if he wanted the castle folk to know he was back. He wasn't yet sure if he _was_ back.

He had left high and mighty in his brocade waistcoat (sewn with love by Dinah from a bolt of cloth Uncle Chess picked up in Wymbdon, sneered at as loblolly bumpkin getup by his classmates at the Academy), ready to master philosophy, rhetoric, astronomy, even the mathematical processes newly brought from the East, the _al-Jabr and Muqabala_. A year later and he was back, dragging his trunk behind him, master of nothing.

 _There's no difference between me and Simon,_ he thought. _Except I've got delusions of grandeur._

Pindar finished wrapping his feet in ointment and clean rags, then sighed gustily and threw himself back onto the sun-warmed rock. "I can't go back," he said to the sky. Clouds drifted by, supremely uncaring of his angst. "Not until I've given them something to be proud of. Not until I've _done_ something to be proud of." He tangled his fingers in the cord of the charm he wore around his neck, twisting it absently. The breeze was cold on his face but the sun was bright, simple as it cut through the turning leaves. He listened to the brook, soothing and steady. After a time, he heard the sound of breathing beside him. The air was sweet and redolent with spices: cloves and ginger, mixed with something musky and strange, like iron filings but sharper.

"Good afternoon, Opinicus," he said, not turning his head. He may not have wanted his solitude intruded upon, but Sister Peace had taught him that to some folk, courtesy was required.

"Good afternoon, little leshy," said the Opinicus, and Pindar didn't even gnash his teeth. From anybody else, the appellation would have prompted an argument or even a rant, but the Opinicus had never called him anything else. He'd always be the "uglee beebeebee" to Finny, "my precious little green gosling" to Patience and Plenty, "Junior" to Uncle Chess. And he'd always be the little leshy to the Opinicus.

Pindar felt a feathery shadow pass over his face, and turned his head to look at the Opinicus. It wasn't looking at him. Paws crossed one over the other, wings raised, the Opinicus gazed ahead with that smug smile it seemed to wear so often. "Why are you here, sir?" he asked.

"This is where I am, now." The Opinicus sounded so sure of itself, a confidence Pindar both envied and loathed. "And why are you here, little leshy? Have you returned from your adventures newly learned?"

Pindar laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That's me," he said. "Pindar the learned. Pindar the scholar. Pindar the rusticated, sent down for fighting."

The Opinicus' wings quivered slightly in what, Pindar suspected, was almost certainly laughter. One golden feather freed itself to flutter slowly toward Pindar's face, and he rolled quickly out of the way before it could land on him and transmit its calming magic. The Opinicus had quelled more than one of Pindar's childhood tantrums that way, when toddler Pin got sick of Sister Peace dragging him around the woods to look for mushrooms, Leeds taunting them as they walked. "So what now, little leshy?"

"I don't _know_!" wailed Pindar, pulling off his spectacles with one hand and throwing the other arm over his eyes. "I can't go back home while I'm a _failure_." He listened to the Opinicus breathe, inhaling the bakery-and-forge scent of it.

"Are you a failure, then?"

"Didn't you hear me?" he snarled, then added, belatedly, "Sir." He felt the air on his wrapped feet, the hard stone beneath his back and head, the tang of autumn on his tongue. He threw his arms over his head, opening his eyes again to the bright penetrating blueness of the sky."I've been sent down from school. The conquering hero returned from his quest with nothing to show for it but blisters and a newly gained skill in the science of self defense."

At that, the Opinicus did turn to face him. "What makes you think you're the hero?" it asked.

"Pardon?" Sometimes Pindar hated being polite to the Opinicus.

"If you're the hero, this is your story," said the Opinicus, lowering its wings to its back. "Is it?"

Pindar furrowed his brow. "What--? Of course it's my story. Who else's story could it be?"

The Opinicus just looked at him, then chuckled, in that deep rumble that always sounded like a rolling thunderhead. "Oh, my dear little leshy," it said. "You _are_ a delight sometimes." It rose, unfolding its tawny limbs with grace, and leaned down to give his face one long, lingering lick before it launched soundlessly from the grass.

Pindar watched it spiral out of sight. He wiped the (musky, iron filings-and-cloves) saliva from his face and sat up on the rock to take stock. His iron bound chest, stocked with the castle's best literary treasures (and one Hammerling gift), padded with baby clothes. His brocade waistcoat. His ointment, given in trade for the knowledge gained from Doctor Fell. His scholar's robes, bought with coins minted from Camilla's best-laid eggs. And... his fingers twined again in the cord of his necklace, rubbing gently over the ribbed braid of his mother's hair. Well.

Maybe the Opinicus was right, but he still wasn't ready to go home. He pulled on his boots, wincing at the shrill bite of bursting blisters. He'd head for Wymbdon, see if there was work as a clerk. Time enough to decide before winter snows set in.

**Author's Note:**

> [Footnotes, bibliography, and beta thanks](http://jadelennox.dreamwidth.org/399246.html).
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Jain's French is "Kick his ass."
> 
> Agatha's insult for Tylo's father is a Scots word for a worthless fellow.
> 
> The Russian the Magister speaks to Pindar is "Tell me about the character and life of the leshy."
> 
> Pindar says in Latin, "From man's stock." The Magister replies, "And he came from the same stock?"
> 
> The Romani sentence Dido speaks to Sal/Mombi is one I pasted together, intentionally without care for grammar or inflection, from the Romani Project website. It's intended to roughly translate to something like "although she is a good girl, her father sent her to prison," which is, in my opinion, as close as Dido could get to knowing how to say "exiled as punishment." Not only is it almost certainly terrible grammar, but it is a blend of several different Romani dialects. Dido is _definitely_ not as awesome as he thinks he is.


End file.
